CANADA: When is the Sheriff not a sheriff? An OPPT point of consideration

When is the Sheriff not a sheriff? An OPPT point of consideration An OPPT point of consideration
Paula Humfrey, Ph.D

• • •

My colleague and former comrade-in-arms has been running an
investigation. It began under the auspices of the Canadian Armed Forces
and has now concluded independently. This seems fitting in a world in
which we're all just now waking up to our own sovereignty as individual
beings or, in OPPT-ese, as 'states of body'.

I was recruited for OPERATION MORNING STAR late last year. I had been
following my own line of inquiry for several years, researching mortgage
fraud after a major Canadian bank sold me a construction mortgage
product that went awry the moment the deal was signed. I kept
encountering bank irregularities and had clear evidence of ongoing loan
manipulation and sharp practice. I brought the bank president's office
directly under scrutiny over this matter and its implications. These are
the circumstances that obtained when I began work with MORNING STAR in
early January. Operations require code names. I was assigned HISTORIAN;
my colleague is BRASS.

What follows below is an aspect of the above investigation now
concluded. It's an important piece of a larger picture to consider, a
rose from the desert. As always, I offer this material in the spirit of
document analysis. Please go directly to the sources linked to the
statements below and ascertain for yourself where the truth lies. As the
Idaho Picker says, 'logic before authority'.

• • •

BRASS' role in MORNING STAR was much like the courageous role that
Trustee Heather Tucci-Jarraf undertook for OPPT: she put her own house
into foreclosure proceedings in order to trace the depth and breadth of
corruption in the American banking and judicial systems. BRASS followed
the same strategy on behalf of MORNING STAR in Canada, in parallel with
OPPT's investigation. The OPERATION MORNING STAR report and findings
will be made publicly available, as it was a main goal of the
investigation to disseminate absolute data. At this point, I trust that
I've already provided the reader with enough contextual information to
easily make sense of the material that follows.

There's a script that banks run in the theater of home foreclosure, for
those of you as yet uninitiated: when it comes right down to doing the
court-ordered dirty deed, it's the sheriff's 'notice to vacate' that
matters. The sheriff is officially supposed to be the impartial hand of
justice, sworn and bonded to duty on behalf of the people. It's a big
deal, frankly.

So picture this little vignette.

BRASS has in his hand a 'notice to vacate' his property (that is, the
home in which he and his family live), issued by the Ontario Superior
Court of Justice, an order "being executed pursuant to the instructions
of: The Bank of Nova Scotia." The exact phrasing is, "I COMMAND YOU to
vacate the premises... If you fail to VACATE the premises as directed by
the above referenced order by the date shown, I will, without further
notice to you, carry out the order as directed." This notice is signed
by a woman whose signature sits above the printed honorific, 'Sheriff'.
[1]

BRASS phones the sheriff's office in order to request an appointment, so
that he can deliver to her an OPPT Courtesy Notice. During the
conversation, BRASS asks the woman to whom he is speaking whether she is
in fact the sheriff, and she affirms that this is so.[2]

BRASS arrives at the sheriff's office at the appointed time and guides
her through the Courtesy Notice. Suddenly (and surprisingly, in light of
her above-described signature), the sheriff indicates that she cannot
herself take receipt of the Courtesy Notice, because she is not in fact
the sheriff. She just signs 'things' on behalf of the sheriff. She says
that she must now go get her boss.

The non-sheriff then fetches another woman from an office; the two
consult with one another and then return to BRASS. And here it all gets
very Monty Python. Non-sheriff defers to the second woman as 'Sheriff'.
But the second woman tells BRASS that no, in fact she is not the sheriff
either. Like her colleague, she just signs 'things' on behalf of the
sheriff. Neither woman is willing to accept a Courtesy Notice, because,
as they note in chorus, "we're not the Sheriff."

BRASS subsequently recalls a conversation he had with a retired Ontario
sheriff some years ago, in which it was explained that when Ontario
Premier Mike Harris was in office in the late 1990s, he closed down all
the sheriff's offices in the province and replaced these seasoned
officers with desk clerks.

HISTORIAN does some research and confirms BRASS' recollection. The desk
clerks in question are now called 'enforcement officers'. This is the
"name formerly used for an officer of the court who is responsible for
enforcing court orders."[3] The sole duty of the 'enforcement officer'
is to process the paperwork for property foreclosures. The Enforcement
and Finance Office (Civil) of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice
(which used to be called the Office of the Sheriff) reveals additional
descriptive information:

And so it emerges that the office of sheriff in the province of Ontario
is a ghost office. There is no sheriff. The sheriff does not exist.
There are no lawfully sworn and bonded sheriffs in Ontario, only regular
government desk clerks who pose as sheriffs for purposes of evicting
people from their homes. Premier Harris and subsequent premiers
neglected to inform the people of Ontario that there were no more
sheriffs. We've had to discover this for ourselves.

The awkward little difficulty here is that impersonating a peace
officer is a felony under the Canadian Criminal Code. Oops.[5] Moreover,
a non-sheriff signing documents as 'Sheriff' constitutes forgery,
another felony. Oops again.[6]

HISTORIAN then reads through the Ontario Ministry of Attorney General's
current recommendations concerning this Enforcement and Finance office
that has silently replaced the Sheriff's office. There's a clear focus
here on expediting judgments on behalf of banks:

"Confidence in the civil justice system will only exist if this process
can produce the results that judgment creditors are entitled to—payment
of their debt in a simple and efficient way. At present, that confidence
is threatened... a new restructured Enforcement Office which would be
responsible for the co-ordination and general operation of a new
enforcement system. Both of the proposed regimes would rely on a new
computerized province-wide Enforcement Registry. Once a Notice of
Judgment has been registered in the Enforcement Registry, all of the
debtor's personal property would be bound."

Perhaps these Ministry recommendations are a tad problematic in light of
the fact that there are no sheriffs but instead only clerks
fraudulently standing as their proxies. OPERATION MORNING STAR
encourages anyone facing home foreclosure in the Ontario to bring this
material to the attention of their local, um, 'sheriff'. Stop into their
office for a visit. Take an OPPT Courtesy Notice with you.

• • •

Notes:

[1] See attached .pdf titled 'Notice to Vacate Sheriff Shari Parr'

[2] BRASS (who is versed in the laws governing wiretapping and
intercept) has recorded this phone conversation for his own reference.

[5] "Personating peace officer: Everyone commits an offence who (a)
falsely represents himself to be a peace officer or a public officer; or
(b) not being a peace officer or public officer, uses a badge or
article of uniform or equipment in a manner that is likely to cause
persons to believe that he is a peace officer or a public officer, as
the case may be."
See: Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46 s 130http://www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-46/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-46.html

[6] "Every one commits forgery who makes a false document, knowing it to
be false, with intent (a) that it should in any way be used or acted on
as genuine, to the prejudice of any one whether within Canada or not;
or (b) that a person should be induced, by the belief that it is
genuine, to do or to refrain from doing anything, whether within Canada
or not."
See: Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46 s 366http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/page-176.html#h-102